Currently they are going through a phase of monarchy which has lasted slightly over a hundred years but it is hard to say how long it will be before they try plutocracy again. You would think that this would lead to all sorts of repression, but it is hard for any sort of totalitarian government to last long in the asteroids as the people not only just leave, but they take their land with them. An extended family or small clan usually controls one or more small asteroids that they own and can slowly manuver them within the asteroid belt. If enough people loose confidence in their government, said political entity will find itself ruling nothing.

The people of the asteroids make a living by any number of activites: trading, farming, animal husbadry, mining, smelting and metal working. You would think the last two impossible on the small worldlets with little land area and no fuels for smelting and forging but the Ancients have provided a means. On each of the major planetoids there is a Forge where metals are melted and worked.

The forges support the economy of the Asteroid kingdoms allowing them to produce metal items that none of the outer planets can. They trade their finished metal products for all sorts of goods and raw materials. Unfortunately for Earth, the Asteroid kingdoms are the principle supplier of cannon to other worlds. It is only the lack of raw materials for gunpowder on other planets that prevent Earth from having some serious rivals for the spaceways. Astroid Kingdom cannon though, have found their way onto many a priate ship.

The Forge, of course, makes the family controlling the planetoid it is on very powerful with its neighbors. But as they compete for subjects, each Kingdom does its best to avoid taxing too much or taking too much of a percentage of worked metals.

Farming is based around a plant called kudzu a fast growing, creeping vine that grows well in low gravity of the planetoids. It somehow emulates the properties of air-stones and fixes an atmosphere in it's immediate vicinity. It does not provide protection from the rays of the sun, however so only the sturdiest of food crops can be grown beside it. By far the most labor intensive portion of farming on the asteroids is keeping the kuzu from strangling the edible crops. Sadly this wonderful plant will only grow in the near zero gravity of the asteroids and all attempts to develop varieties that will grow on a planet have met with failure.

Asteroid kudzu can be made edible to humans only by vigerously pulverising it and boiling it for hours on end. After that, you are left with a stringy vegitable slurry whoes consumption tests the constitution of even the strongest man. Goats, on the other hand, love it and the astroid peoples raise a special breed resistant to the rays of the sun. These goats somehow fix metals into their coats and these reflect harmful rays. It is advisable to leave no metal items unattended around these animals as they will frequently try to consume them. (They particularly love tin cans.) It is an amazing sight seeing these creatures leap from one planetoid to another, momentarily exposing themselves to the void, in order to get at a patch of tasty looking kudzu. The wool from these goats makes for particularly effective sun-suits which the Asteroid peoples use outside the protection of air-stones.

Ancient Lesser Wonders: Forges

The forges (originally twelve) appear to be circular pits about four inches deep in the floor of chambers carved out of large asteroids. They radiate little energy, but anything placed in the pits starts to heat until it becomes molten. Their true purpose remains hidden from us to this day, although the peoples of the astroids have set them to a practical application.

Appropriate adjective and collective noun: Asteroid people, Astroidian, Belters.

How was the planet affected during the Fall: The people who depended on air-stones no doubt lasted a while but they would hardly have time to set out for Earth. Kudzu could have supported them indefinately, but none of my subsequent incarnation ever heard of people matching the description of the Astroid peoples. Their fate can be guessed at, though. The kudzu seems to have been a kind of natural receptor for the energies that powered the air-stones. When whatever broadcast power to the air-stones shut down the plants ceased acting as air-stones immediately. That would explain why none of the asteroid people made it to Earth.

Name of the Younger Senshi at the time of the Fall: n/a the Forges were too diffuse to connect into a single Senshi, though each of the major asteroids could vest enough power in a champion to create a lesser senshi.

Fate of the Younger Senshi: N/A

Name of the Moon Cat: None was ever created by Serenity the second as they had no senshi. However, a couple of the second generation moon cats (Zeek and Anabell) settled in the asteroids. The two of them even produced the only third generation moon cat known to exist. Fate of the Moon Cat: Unknown. It's quite possible that one or both of the second generation cats were placed in sleep modules before air ran out on the asteroids, but there's no way of knowing for sure.